'She started screaming and crying': Traumatic experience with dog leaves Aurora family searching for answers

After a dog bit her daughter in a local park and its owner disappeared, an Aurora mom is seeking safety training for pet owners

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 16, 2022
Kim Zarzour

It was a great summer for seven-year-old Eva Friedman -- except for the end part.

The last two weeks nearly ruined it all.

She and her dad, Evgeny Friedman, were hanging out at their favourite local park in Aurora. Eva was watching some people throw a ball with two unleashed dogs.

One of the animals she recognized. The other, bigger one -- a white dog with black spots -- she did not. In the blink of an eye, it crashed into her and dug his teeth into her leg.

“She started screaming and crying,” her mom, Olga Zingerman, said. “She’s allergic to many things and started to have problems with her breathing. My husband tried try to calm her down and he was really scared.”

In the midst of the ruckus, she said, the owners told Eva’s dad they were sorry -- then disappeared.

At the hospital, doctors told them they had two options: find the dog and make sure it’s vaccinated against rabies. If the dog shows signs of rabies, or if they can’t find it within 24 hours, the child needed to undergo rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, a series of injections during a two-week period.

For the next two days they searched frantically, returning to the park and posting on social media, to no avail.

And so for the next 14 days, they brought her to Southlake for early-morning injections. The first shot was the worst, Eva said. “They put it in the place where I got bitten. It hurt it a lot.”

The rest of the injections, she took stoically. Now her mom is praising her bravery and calling for better education for pet owners.

With more pets since the start of the pandemic, she believes public health or animal services should invest more resources into owners’ education. “Pet parents should be trained not only in their pet’s behaviour and how to treat them, but also applicable laws, the same way we get a driver’s licence.”

Studies show more people acquired pets during the pandemic. Markham-based Pet Valu Canada reported one third of Canadian pet owners added an estimated three million new pets to their homes.

While Aurora’s manager of bylaw services says the number of dog bites is unchanged, a Facebook post on the town’s page last year warned of an increase in bites and complaints of dogs off leash.

The Region of York also raised concerns early this year about increased confrontations with off-leash dogs in the region’s forests.

Dogs are required to be leashed when owners are working outside the home or taking them for a walk, or face a fine of $400, said Lindsay Clarke, the town’s supervisor of Parking and Animal Services.

Clarke said the town promotes responsible pet ownership through “social media posts, proactive patrols, educational outreach, pet licensing, and voluntary compliance with municipal bylaws.”

There’s also increased signage about dogs at-large in Case Woodlot and a recent request to participate in a presentation to students in a Georgina school.

Zingerman says that’s not enough. “I feel like there is no control on this.”

Other towns have done more. Richmond Hill hired an animal services educator in 2014 to teach responsible pet ownership, bite prevention and first aid. It was based on successful programs in Mississauga and Calgary, where public educators teach schoolchildren about safety and pet ownership, reaching out to neighbourhood associations and volunteer groups. The position was cut in 2016.

In 2018, the OSPCA and Humane Society launched AnimalSmart to teach schoolchildren empathy and pet responsibility.

York Region Public Health is developing dog bite prevention information for school-age children as well as providing info at community events and online, said regional spokesperson Caitlin Gladney-Hatcher.

Meantime, Eva’s parents are watching their daughter carefully, worried she’s still feeling the effects of her trauma.

Eva, now avoiding her favourite park, planned to share a warning with her classmates when she returned to school: “If you see a dog without a leash in the park that's big, you should always have a parent with you.”